Page 97 of Bull Rush

“You aren’t the one who found her like that. You didn’t lean down to touch her one last time and find her body still warm. I was minutes away from being able to do something about it.”

“You wouldn’t have done anything about it. You would have ended up dead,” Grant answers me flatly, stopping his pace in front of his windows to look at me like I’m insane for thinking it would have gone down any other way.

“At least I would have died trying.” I grit my teeth.

“This isn’t worth discussing. It’s in the past,” Levi interjects, looking between us like he doesn’t have the energy for one of our brotherly spats today.

“Then tell me about the present. I want to know exactly why a madwoman and her fucked up son were on my ranch torturing and manipulating my wife. It’s obvious you knew more than you let on.”

“More but not enough. If you’d held your temper, we might have gotten more out of her.” Grant flashes a derisive look in my direction.

“She killed our mother.”

“All the more reason we should have gotten more out of her.” Grant presses his point.

“Fucking hell. The two of you need to stop fighting each other. We don’t have time for it. We killed two of theirs, and they still don’t have what they’re looking for. They’ll be at our door soon enough, and we all need to be on the same page of a plan when that happens.” Levi looks at us both like we’re misbehaving toddlers.

“Fine. What are they looking for? Let’s start there.” I study my brothers.

My brothers exchange glances before one of them speaks, and apparently Levi wins the silent argument.

“A reliquary,” Grant says flatly.

“A reliquary?” Of all the things I’d imagined, that was low on the list.

“Two weeks before Mom and Dad died, we were sent to help carry out a heist. It was part of a debt Dad owed to someone else—a favor he’d promised in exchange for an advance. One he needed to cover a bad bet. He sent us to ensure that it went smoothly, to have eyes on it since he couldn’t be there. Something went wrong. We still don’t know exactly what, but there was another team there at the same time as ours. The alarms were tripped, and in the process of trying to get out, we were attacked and robbed. Nearly killed. Managed to wound them in the process, but we never figured out who it was,” Levi explains.

“You were robbedduringa robbery?” I ask skeptically.

“We were double-crossed. They used us to get in and it gave them someone to pin the blame on. Then after we did all the hard work, they took what we’d stolen. We were scapegoats.” Grant explains his side of the story while Levi crosses his arms.

“That’s a theory.” Levi looks at Grant. “We don’t know for sure.”

“There’s no other realistic explanation,” Grant answers, and it’s clear they’ve been arguing about this for the last five years.

“So you don’t have any of it, but someone thinks you do?”

Grant turns his back and looks out the window as Levi tilts his head and looks at the floor. I’m getting tired oftheir quiet little play they’re putting on, one that’s delaying the answers I need.

“Tell him,” Grant mutters.

“We still have one piece of it. It was the rarest piece in the collection, so we took extra precautions with it. Stowed it somewhere safe before we ever went for the rest. When they held us at gunpoint, they took what we had—not realizing that they didn’t have the most important piece,” Levi explains.

“There isn’t exactly time to double-check the order’s right when you’re fucking someone over, and the police are on their way.” Grant turns around, his hands in his suit pockets as he shakes his head and leans back against the desk.

“Did Mom and Dad know? Why did they kill them instead of you?” I ask, perplexed by what the reasoning could have been. It was Grant and Levi who fucked up.

“We don’t know. That’s what we needed Amelia to tell us.” Grant levels me with a look that tells me he’s disappointed that my temper got the best of me.

“She wasn’t going to tell you. Not once she realized Curtis was dead.” I shake my head.

“And whose fault is that?” Grant looks at me.

“Whose fault? That’s what you want to figure out right now? Because it certainly fucking seems like there’s plenty to go around in this family. Starting with you two not being honest,” I snap back at him.

“He’s right.” Levi looks at Grant, his brow furrowed, and Grant shakes his head, letting out a frustrated sigh.

“So they think Mom and Dad hid the reliquary somewhere on the ranch?” It feels like pulling teeth to get my brothers to give me any details.

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